Gobineau, (Joseph) Arthur, Comte de (b. Ville d’Avray, 14 July 1816; d. Turin, 13 Oct.
1882), novelist, diplomat, essayist, ethnologist. Protégé of Alexis de Tocqueville, who as
Foreign Minister appointed Gobineau his Cabinet Head. Gobineau’s diplomatic career took in
Germany, Persia, Brazil, and Sweden. In Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines (The
Inequality of Human Races, 1853-5), Gobineau made racial distinction – white (intelligent,
courageous), black (sensual, brutal), and yellow (materialistic, feeble) – history’s guiding
principle. The white race, whether Germanic, ancient Greek, or Indo-European (“Aryan”),
enabled civilization. Apparent exceptions, such as China, were ascribed to white influence.
Civilization partly depended upon miscegenation, interracial breeding, yet in that dilution lay
its downfall. Gobineau was not anti-Semitic; he admired the effort of “white” Jews through
Mosaic Law to maintain their “purity.” Tocqueville protested that Gobineau’s argument was
probably wrong and certainly pernicious.
The Wagners briefly met Gobineau in Rome in 1876. There is neither evidence nor
likelihood that Wagner read Gobineau or learned of his ideas until after their 1880 meeting in
VENICE; Wagner makes no mention of Gobineau’s theories before 1880, nor does Cosima in
her diaries. Thus, despite the claims of writers such as Robert Gutman (ch. 13), the possibility
of influence upon PARSIFAL, whose poem was essentially completed in 1877, its “orchestral
sketch” in 1879, tends towards zero. Gobineau visited WAHNFRIED in 1881 (when Wagner
presented his collected writings to “the Count”) and in 1882.
“Scientific” fatalism might appeal to Wagner as SCHOPENHAUER’s disciple, though
not as revolutionary. Gobineau presented not a political program, but an alleged scientific
truth, echoing the Enlightenment project of discerning fundamental historical laws, akin to
those of Newton – or, as later racists would prefer, Darwin. Gobineau believed in human
degeneration; Wagner varied. Whereas Gobineau’s driving force was miscegenation,
Wagner, in a late echo of Feuerbach, pointed to dietary change. Though Wagner seems to
have come to attribute some importance to miscegenation, he introduced a GENDERed element
and retained the prospect of REGENERATION or REDEMPTION through art and RELIGION. Thus
an 1881 BROWN BOOK entry, possibly intended in part to correct Gobineau’s non-racial essay,
La Renaissance: “In the mingling of races, the blood of the nobler males is ruined by the
baser feminine element: the masculine element suffers, character founders, whilst the women
gain as much as to take the men’s place. (Renaissance). The feminine thus remains owing
deliverance: here art – as there in religion; the immaculate Virgin gives birth to the Savior.”
(BB/E, 23 Oct 1881). Gobineau denied universality and founded morality upon ontology:
Aryan deeds were good because they were performed by Aryans. Wagner, however, desired
universal redemption, JEWS included; morality should transform ontology.
Yet, as with Schopenhauer, Wagner found “confirmation” of previously held views,
and “corrected” instances in which both writers erred. Cosima describes Wagner, during
Gobineau’s 1881 visit, as “downright explosive in favor of Christian theories in contrast to
racial ones” (CWD, 3 June 1881). Correspondence demonstrates mutual respect but both men
standing their intellectual ground. Despite some writers’ claims, Gobineau’s influence on
Wagner was minimal, differences more revealing than correspondences. However, the panGermanist LUDWIG SCHEMANN and other members of the BAYREUTH CIRCLE founded a
Gobineau Association in 1894, transforming Gobineau’s pessimism into a racial and political
opposition between Aryan and Jew. Cosima dissociated herself and the Festival.
MARK BERRY
Eugène, Eric (ed.), Richard et Cosima Wagner/Arthur Gobineau: Correspondance 18801882 (Saint-Genouph: Nizet, 2000).
Schemann, Ludwig, Gobineau. Eine Biographie, 2 vols. (Strasbourg: Triibner, 1913-16).